FriendFeed accepts Facebook friend request — We are happy to announce that Facebook has acquired FriendFeed. As my mom explained to me, when two companies love each other very much, they form a structured investment vehicle... The FriendFeed team is extremely excited to become a part of the talented Facebook team.

Oh, FriendFeed is now Facebook's “official” R&D department! — When I heard the news I was walking through San Antonio's Hard Rock Cafe looking at Kurt Cobain's high school photograph. Wow. FriendFeed was purchased by Facebook. — I quickly wrote a DM to Paul Buchheit and Bret Taylor, co-founders and said “call me.”

Facebook Agrees to Acquire Sharing Service FriendFeed — Facebook today announced that it has agreed to acquire FriendFeed, the innovative service for sharing online. As part of the agreement, all FriendFeed employees will join Facebook and FriendFeed's four founders will hold senior roles on Facebook's engineering and product teams.

Facebook buys FriendFeed: Is this a big deal? — Surprise! Facebook has acquired FriendFeed, a Bay Area-based social-network feed aggregation start-up. — “Facebook and FriendFeed share a common vision of giving people tools to share and connect with their friends,” FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor said in a release.

Caffeine: Google's New Search Index — Google has just unveiled a “secret project” of “next-generation architecture for Google's web search”. This new architecture appears to include crawling, indexing, and ranking changes. For the first time, Google isn't simply incorporating these changes …

More info on the Caffeine Update — Google recently opened up a preview of our new Caffeine update, and I wanted to give a little more background on this change. At the Real-Time CrunchUp a few weeks ago, I joked that the half-life of code at Google is about six months.

Facebook Search Improved for Everyone — Last month, we began testing new versions of Search with a small group of people on Facebook. Based on the success of those tests, we're rolling out a new version of Search to everyone on the site beginning today. — You now will be able to search …

Zune HD Prices Leaked: 16GB for $220, 32GB for $290 — It feels like we know everything about the Zune HD—except the price. Well, now we know, if Best Buy's inventory system is right: the 16GB model will go for $220, and the 32GB model will be $290. — It also backs up the previously rumored launch date, Sept. 8.

MLB beefs up Roku's rotation — In its bid to put together a roster of compelling content, Roku has just acquired an ace. — Starting Tuesday, the set-top box—known to many as “the Netflix box”—will begin streaming Major League Baseball games. As with the current Netflix arrangement …

Mahalo 2.0 Is Kicking Ass — Jason Calacanis continues to do what he does best: Innovate. — When the original concept for Mahalo didn't work as well as he thought it would, he did what all great entrepreneurs do: Try something different. — The second version of Mahalo …

An Elephant Leaves the Room at Yahoo — Doug Cutting, one of Yahoo's top search and infrastructure software experts, will leave the company later this month and join the Silicon Valley start-up Cloudera. — Mr. Cutting's exit from Yahoo follows on the heels of the company's recent search tie-up with Microsoft.

Major labels preparing new digital album format — The four big record companies are to compete with Apple's forthcoming Cocktail project by developing their own format called CMX — Forget WAV, MP3 and M4A - major labels have something new in mind, and it's called CMX.

Microsoft: “dropping support for IE6 is not an option” — In a blog post on the IEBlog, Microsoft has outlined its reasoning for not forcing users to upgrade away from IE6. — Microsoft wants to see IE6 gone as much as anyone else, but the company isn't going to make the decision for its users anytime soon.

Silicon Valley software developers to get WiMAX network soon — WiMAX, the next-generation technology that will replace aging Wi-Fi networks with smarter, faster Internet access, is slated to launch in the Bay Area in 2010. But a small cadre of software developers will be able to access the network much sooner.

Robots to get their own operating system — THE UBot whizzes around a carpeted conference room on its Segway-like wheels, holding aloft a yellow balloon. It hands the balloon to a three-fingered robotic arm named WAM, which gingerly accepts the gift. — Cameras click.